The Lucky Elephant--March, 2010

Since early high school I have been fascinated by nanotechnology. My first encounter with the subject was a friend of mine who told me about the concept of nanites, microscopic, autonomous machines capable of assembling anything from furniture to complex electronic devices out of constituent matter. I was not alone - this is the introduction the world was given in Drexler’s Engines of Creation back in 1986.

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

A couple, with nine children, beat one of them to death and left another in critical condition with kidney failure, while following the teachings on child discipline promulgated by Michael and Debi Pearl, which are very popular in the fundamentalist Christian community and in particular the Christian homeschooling movement. Here's the story at Salon, and check out the links in it, particularly by a friend of the family. In short, a 7-year-old girl named Lydia Schatz was beaten until her organs failed from chemicals released by broken-down tissue. She died, and her older sister Zariah is in critical condition.

It’s January already? Really? It’s also a new decade? As hard as it is to believe, a new year and a new decade really are upon us. In some circles resolutions are considered ridiculous, but I’ve always found January to be a perfect time to find things to improve upon.

Here in the United States, the weather is less than ideal and springtime seems entirely too far away. The holidays are over and my mind wants something new to focus on. The solution? Self-improvement!

What is nanotechnology, and why do people study it?

The definition fed to us from dictionaries and the like is the rather bland and unhelpful: any science where at least one of the dimensions is less than 100 nanometres (nm), where 1 nm is equal to 10 to the minus 9 metres long (0.000000001 metres). For reference, the length of the bond between the two atoms in a hydrogen molecule is about one-tenth of a nanometre. The cells that make up your body are on the order of 1000 nm. So when I talk about the science of the small, hopefully you appreciate exactly how small I mean.

But that description is hardly sexy, and it tells us little. When asked by laymen, what is nanotechnology, I respond simply by saying it involves molecular machines, the design and construction of devices and systems that are built up from just a few molecules apiece. Easier to understand, though I can’t pretend this isn’t a very crude description. Still, it gets the point across.

You all know all there is to know about nanotechnology. You have seen it in action, as a green mist that dissolved Paris, as tiny cubes that form freaky spider things that do battle with humans and big-headed aliens alike, as a devouring force sent to cleanse us by Keanu Reeves.

You have read about it, too. Michael Crichton’s Prey shows nanotechnology doing what the dinosaurs did in Jurassic Park – running amok, killing people and showing far greater intelligence than might be accurate.

I've been coaching baseball now for 22 years, with a year of coaching little kids in tee-ball before that. That's probably more coaching experience than most people will ever get in a lifetime and something I take more and more pride in as the years go by. It has resulted in some interesting experiences and lessons that I'm always happy to share with whoever asks. And now, I'm gonna share a few thoughts with you.

Every year, about two weeks before Halloween, people start talking about NaNoWriMo. They began mentioning possible ideas, blog about their plans, start threads on message boards to meet other participants, start asking if others plan to give it a go this year, and generally behaving as though this is a great, fun game. In fact, the concept of writing a novel as a game is so interwoven in this month that there are "winners" and "losers." What do you have to do to win? Finish 50,000 words, of course! That's it. That's all. It actually seems like a rather harmless activity. One that I shouldn't have any issue with. It keeps people occupied and happy and hell, I'm always posting encouragement to writers. I love helping new writers--I'm a writing teacher for God's sake! But I hate NaNoWriMo, and I'll tell you why.

A Hero’s Journey: The making of a Taekwondo Black Belt

If you have ever read Joseph Campbell (and if you haven’t, go do so!), you will know that he writes about mythology. Campbell says that all myths from all cultures fall into one or more archetypical structures, one of which is the monomyth, or the hero’s journey. He himself summarized the concept of the hero’s journey in his introduction to The Hero with a Thousand Faces:

“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”

One day, Mrs. Lafe entered the kitchen and as she closed the door behind her, she spotted the apparition of a man in a black frock coat standing across the room. She screamed in terror and the figure vanished.
- The Haunted Museum

I’ve been doing research on spiritualism and the supernatural for a historical novella called “The Dark Farewell.” It’s for inclusion in The Mysterious, an anthology of historical ghost stories I’m doing with Alex Beecroft and Laura Baumbach for MLR Press. And as I read through early accounts of mediums and séances and hauntings, I’ve discovered two things: 1) Subtle is scarier, and 2) I am a big fraidy cat.